Concurrent with the growth of the global economy, the volume of shipments of goods has increased. Many international shipments are transported using ships to transport a large number of cargo containers. These cargo containers are transported in large volumes from points of origin to intermediate storage locations and to subsequent ports of entry.
When the cargo container arrives at a port of entry, concerns arise regarding security of the cargo containers. The security includes not only the security of the containers themselves, but also if the containers have been tampered with during shipment. For example, if a cargo container is breached by someone seeking to cause damage, a potentially dangerous item may be placed within the cargo container. Due to the sheer volume of cargo containers shipped annually, there exists a significant chance this threat could be undetected.
It is also noted that significant amounts of international shipping and domestic shipping occurs using other media. For example, a large number of cargo containers enter the country across railroads and semi-trailers. Furthermore, national shipping is typically done using the railroads and semi-trailer shipments over interstate highways.
For example, in the United States, there are approximately 102 seaports and the volume of shipments through these seaports has more than doubled since 1995. In 2001, the United States Customs processed approximately 214,000 vessels carrying subsequently approximately 5.7 million cargo containers. Globally, over 200 million cargo containers move between various seaports per year. In the United States alone, approximately 16 million cargo containers arrived within the United States by ship, truck and railroad within United States' 301 ports of entry in 2001.
While visual inspections may be performed generally on incoming shipments, it is unreasonable to inspect every single incoming cargo container. Furthermore, the cargo containers currently do not contain devices for detecting if a breach of the cargo container occurs. Moreover, due to the sheer volume of cargo containers currently utilized in global shipping, it is unreasonable to retrofit all cargo containers with sensing equipment.
As it is any time during the transportation of the cargo containers that security breaches may occur, it is unrealistic to maintain surveillance on all cargo containers during all points of shipment. Therefore, there exists a need for a system to monitor the security of cargo containers and providing sensing of potential or actual security breaches.